Murray Rothbard
| birth_place = Bronx, New York, United States | death_date = January | death_place = New York City, New York, U.S. | nationality = American | institution = Polytechnic Institute of New York University, University of Nevada, Las Vegas | field = Economics, Political economy, Natural law, Anarchism, Praxeology, Numismatics, Philosophy of law, Ethics, Economic history | alma_mater = Columbia University | opposed = Milton FriedmanMurray N. Rothbard, [http://books.google.gr/books?id=B65ic_7bfFEC&pg=PA173&lpg=PA173&dq For a New Liberty], Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006, pp. 31, 165, 325. | influences = Aristotle, Aquinas, Böhm-Bawerk, Hazlitt, La Boétie, Burke, Chodorov, Hayek, Wilder Lane, Laozi, Locke, Mencken, Menger, Mises, Molinari, Nock, Oppenheimer, Rand, Say, Schumpeter, Spencer, Spooner, Tucker, Turgot, Harper | influenced = Hoppe, Rockwell, Konkin, Narveson, Heath, Callahan, Raico, Salerno, Sobran, Stringham, McElroy, Tucker, Bylund, Long, Caplan, Murphy, Woods, Kinsella, Nozick, Molyneux, Thornton, Horton, Raimondo, DiLorenzo, Block, von NotHaus, the Tannehills, Paul, Higgs, Leeson, Holcombe | contributions = Founder of Anarcho-capitalism, contributions to natural law theory, praxeology and economic history | awards = | signature = | repec_prefix = | repec_id = }} Murray Newton Rothbard (March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist, historian, and political theorist. He was a prominent exponent of the Austrian School of economics and fundamentally influenced the American libertarian movement and contemporary libertarian and classical liberal thought, by theorizing a form of free-market anarchism which he termed "anarcho-capitalism". F. Eugene Heathe. Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society. SAGE. 2007. p. 89Ward, Colin. (2004). Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Rothbard wrote over twenty books and is considered a centrally important figure in the American libertarian movement.Ronald Hamowy, Editor, The encyclopedia of libertarianism, p 441. Building on the Austrian School's concept of spontaneous order, support for a free market in money production, and condemnation of central planning Rothbard advocated abolition of coercive government control of society and the economy.[http://www.mises.org/store/Free-Market-Monetary-System-A-P553.aspx?AFID=14 Free Market Money System] by F.A. Hayek He considered the monopoly force of government the greatest danger to liberty and the long-term well-being of the populace, labeling the state as "the organization of robbery systematized and writ large" and the locus of the most immoral, grasping and unscrupulous individuals in any society.The Ethics of Liberty, Murray Rothbard Repudiating the National Debt, Murray RothbardTo Save Our Economy From Destruction, Murray Rothbard Rothbard concluded that all services provided by monopoly governments could be provided more efficiently by the private sector. He viewed many regulations and laws ostensibly promulgated for the "public interest" as self-interested power grabs by scheming government bureaucrats engaging in dangerously unfettered self-aggrandizement, as they were not subject to market disciplines. Rothbard held that there were inefficiencies involved with government services and asserted that market disciplines would eliminate them, if the services could be provided by competition in the private sector.The Great Society: A Libertarian Critique, Murray RothbardThe Noble Task of Revisionism, Murray RothbardThe Fallacy of the 'Public Sector', Murray Rothbard Rothbard was equally condemning of state corporatism, criticizing many instances where business elites co-opted government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals.For a New Liberty, Chapter 3 He argued that taxation represents coercive theft on a grand scale, and "a compulsory monopoly of force" prohibiting the more efficient voluntary procurement of defense and judicial services from competing suppliers.Tax Day, Murray Rothbard He also considered central banking and fractional reserve banking under a monopoly fiat money system a form of state-sponsored, legalized financial fraud, antithetical to libertarian principles and ethics.Rothbard, Murray. [http://mises.org/resources/614/Mystery-of-Banking-The The Mystery of Banking] Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2008. p. 111 The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar, Murray RothbardSee also Murray Rothbard articles: Private Coinage; Repudiate the National Debt; and Taking Money Back Rothbard opposed military, political, and economic interventionism in the affairs of other nations.Rothbard on War, excerpts from a 1973 Reason Magazine article and other materials, published at Antiwar.com, undated.Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 265. Life and work Rothbard was born to David and Rae Rothbard, who raised their Jewish family in the Bronx. His father, a chemist, "emigrated to the United States from a Polish shtetl in 1910, impoverished and knowing not a word of English,"Rothbard, Murray. Life in the Old Right, LewRockwell.com, first published in Chronicles, August 1994 while his mother came from Russia. Reprinted from 15 Great Austrian Economists, edited by Randall G. Holcombe. "I grew up in a Communist culture," he recalled. He attended Columbia University, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and economics in 1945 and a Master of Arts degree in 1946. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics in 1956 at Columbia under Joseph Dorfman.David Gordon, Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) biography, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.Gary North, Ron Paul on Greenspan’s Fed, Lew Rockwell.com, February 28, 2004. During the early 1950s, Rothbard studied under the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises at his seminars at New York University and was greatly influenced by Mises' book Human Action. Rothbard attracted the attention of the William Volker Fund, the main group that supported classical liberal scholars in the 1950s and early 1960s. He began a project to write a textbook to explain Human Action in a fashion suitable for college students; a sample chapter he wrote on money and credit won Mises’s approval. As Rothbard continued his work, he transformed the project. The result, Man, Economy, and State published in 1962, was a central work of Austrian economics.Gordon, David. The Essential Rothbard, p. 14. From 1963 to 1985, Rothbard taught at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, in Brooklyn, New York. From 1986 until his death he was a distinguished professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Rothbard founded the Center for Libertarian Studies in 1976 and the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 1977. He was associated with the 1982 creation of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and later was its academic vice president. In 1987, he started the scholarly Review of Austrian Economics, now called the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. In 1953, in New York City, he married JoAnn Schumacher (1928–1999), whom he called the "indispensable framework" for his life and work. He died in 1995 in Manhattan of a heart attack. The New York Times obituary called Rothbard "an economist and social philosopher who fiercely defended individual freedom against government intervention."David Stout, Obituary: Murray N. Rothbard, Economist And Free-Market Exponent, 68, The New York Times, January 11, 1995. JoAnn died four years later from the aftereffects of a stroke.http://mises.org/daily/323 Austrian School writings The Austrian School attempts to discover axioms of human action (called "praxeology" in the Austrian tradition). It supports free market economics and criticizes command economies. Influential advocates were Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises. Rothbard argued that the entire Austrian economic theory is the working out of the logical implications of the fact that humans engage in purposeful action.Grimm, Curtis M.; Hunn, Lee; Smith, Ken G. Strategy as Action: Competitive Dynamics and Competitive Advantage. New York Oxford University Press (US). 2006. p. 43 In working out these axioms he came to the position that a monopoly price could not exist on the free market. He also anticipated much of the “rational expectations” viewpoint in economics. In accordance with his free-market views, Rothbard argued that individual protection and national defense also should be offered on the market, rather than supplied by government’s coercive monopoly. Rothbard was an ardent critic of Keynesian economic thoughtSee Robthbard's essay Keynes the Man, originally published in Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics, Edited by Mark Skousen. New York: Praeger, 1992, 171–198; Online edition at The Ludwig von Mises Institute. as well as the utilitarian theory of philosopher Jeremy Bentham.See Rothbard's essay, "Jeremy Bentham: The Utilitarian as Big Brother" published in his work, Classical Economics. In Man, Economy, and State Rothbard divides the various kinds of state intervention in three categories: "autistic intervention", which is interference with private non-exchange activities; "binary intervention", which is forced exchange between individuals and the state; and "triangular intervention", which is state-mandated exchange between individuals. According to Sanford Ikeda, Rothbard's typology "eliminates the gaps and inconsistencies that appear in Mises's original formulation."Ikeda, Sanford, Dyamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism, Routledge UK, 1997, 245.Murray Rothbard, Chapter 2 "Fundamentals of Intervention" from Man, Economy and State, Ludwig von Mises Institute. Rothbard also was knowledgeable in history and political philosophy. Rothbard's books, such as Man, Economy, and State, Power and Market, The Ethics of Liberty, and For a New Liberty, are considered by some to be classics of natural law and libertarian thought, combining libertarian natural rights philosophy, anti-government anarchism and a free market perspective in analyzing a range of contemporary social and economic issues. He also possessed extensive knowledge of the history of economic thought, studying the pre-Adam Smith free market economic schools, such as the Scholastics and the Physiocrats and discussed them in his unfinished, multi-volume work, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Rothbard writes in Power and Market that the role of the economist in a free market is limited but the role and power of the economist in a government that continually intervenes in the market expands, as the interventions trigger problems which require further diagnosis and the need for further policy recommendations. Rothbard argues that this simple self-interest prejudices the views of many economists in favor of increased government intervention.Peter G. Klein, Why Intellectuals Still Support Socialism, Ludwig von Mises Institute, November 15, 2006Man, Economy, and State, Chapter 7 – Conclusion: Economics and Public Policy, Ludwig Von Mises Institute. Rothbard also created "Rothbard's law" that "people tend to specialize in what they are worst at. Henry George, for example, is great on everything but land, so therefore he writes about land 90% of the time. Friedman is great except on money, so he concentrates on money."Interview with Murray N. Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Summer 1990. Ethical and political views presidential convention in New York City.]] In the late 1940s Rothbard questioned why under laissez-faire economics private police protection could not replace government protective services and in 1949 came to the conclusion it could. He was influenced by nineteenth-century American individualist anarchists like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker and the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari who wrote about how such a system could work.Gordon, David. The Essential Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1st edition. February 26, 2007, p 12-13. ISBN 1-933550-10-4 PDF version Thus he "combined the laissez-faire economics of Mises with the absolutist views of human rights and rejection of the state" from individualist anarchists.Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, 1987, ISBN 0-631-17944-5, p. 290 Rothbard parted with Mises on the issue of ethics, since Mises preferred to avoid ethical arguments and show that interventionist economic laws failed to achieve their goals. Rothbard held that interventionist laws did in fact benefit some, including even people who might be destructive, and therefore an ethical basis for the free market was necessary. His principle was "self-ownership". Applying this to contract law, he wrote that it was not ethical for people to contract themselves into slavery.Gordon, David. The Essential Rothbard, p. 87-89. Rothbard's ethical views also were influenced by classical liberalism and the anti-imperialism of the Old Right.Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State, p. 134, Prometheus Books, 2000. In 1954, Rothbard, along with several other students of Ludwig von Mises, such as George Reisman and Ralph Raico, associated with novelist Ayn Rand the founder of Objectivism. He soon parted from her, writing, among other things, that her ideas were not as original as she proclaimed but similar to those of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Herbert Spencer.Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State, p. 109-114. In 1958, after the publication of her novel Atlas Shrugged, Rothbard wrote a "fan letter" to Rand, calling her book "an infinite treasure house," and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, it is one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction." He also wrote that "you introduced me to the whole field of natural rights and natural law philosophy," prompting him to learn "the glorious natural rights tradition."Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State, p. 121, 132-134,.Burns, Jennifer, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009, p. 145, 182. ISBN 0-19-532487-0, ISBN 978-0-19-532487-7Mises and Rothbard Letters to Ayn Rand, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 21, No. 4 (Winter 2007): 11–16. He rejoined her circle for a few months, but soon broke with Rand over various differences including his defense of anarchism. Later, Rothbard lampooned Rand's circle in his play Mozart Was a Red and essay, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult."Burns, Jennifer, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, p.184.Murray Rothbard play Mozart was a red, early 1960s, at LewRockwell.com.Murray Rothbard, "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.", 1972, at LewRockwell.com]. In later years he would fully develop his ethical and political views. Sheldon Richman describes him as "the leading theorist of radical Lockean libertarianism combined with Austrian economics, which demonstrates that free markets produce widespread prosperity, social cooperation, and economic coordination without monopoly, depression, or inflation—evils whose roots are to be found in government intervention."Richman, Sheldon Libertarian Left, The American Conservative He connected these to more modern views, writing: "There is, in the body of thought known as 'Austrian economics', a scientific explanation of the workings of the free market (and of the consequences of government intervention in that market) which individualist anarchists could easily incorporate into their political and social Weltanschauung.""The Spooner-Tucker Doctrine: An Economist's View" Rothbard opposed what he considered the overspecialization of the academy and sought to fuse the disciplines of economics, history, ethics, and political science to create a "science of liberty." Rothbard described the moral basis for his anarcho-capitalist position in two of his books: For a New Liberty, published in 1973, and The Ethics of Liberty, published in 1982. In his Power and Market (1970), Rothbard describes how a stateless economy might function.Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography, LewRockwell.com. Ethics In The Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard asserts the right of absolute self-ownership, as the only principle compatible with a moral code that applies to every person—a "universal ethic"—and that it is a natural law by being what is naturally best for man.Rothbard, Murray Newton. The Ethics of Liberty. NYU Press. 2003. pp. 45–45 He argued that, as a result, individuals owned the fruits of their labor. Accordingly, each person had the right to exchange his property with others. He also advocated for Lockean homesteading, arguing that if an individual mixes his labor with unowned land then he is the proper owner, and from that point on it is private property that may only exchange hands by trade or gift.Kyriazi, Harold. Reckoning With Rothbard (2004). American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63 (2), 451 Rothbard later accepted and enthusiastically advocated for Hans Hermann Hoppe's argumentation ethics, calling it a "dazzling breakthrough" in libertarian ethics. Anarcho-capitalism Rothbard began to consider himself a private property anarchist in the 1950s and later began to use "anarcho-capitalist".Roberta Modugno Crocetta, Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism in the contemporary debate. A critical defense, Ludwig Von Mises Institute.Michael Oliver, 'Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard, originally published in "The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal", February 25, 1972. He wrote: "Capitalism is the fullest expression of anarchism, and anarchism is the fullest expression of capitalism.""Exclusive Interview With Murray Rothbard" The New Banner: A Fortnightly Libertarian Journal (February 25, 1972) In his anarcho-capitalist model, a system of protection agencies compete in a free market and are voluntarily supported by consumers who choose to use their protective and judicial services. Anarcho-capitalism would mean the end of the state monopoly on force. Rothbard was equally condemning of relationships he perceived between big business and big government. He cited many instances where business elites co-opted government's monopoly power so as to influence laws and regulatory policy in a manner benefiting them at the expense of their competitive rivals. According to Rothbard, one example of such cronyism included grants of monopolistic privilege the railroads derived from sponsoring so-called conservation laws.For A New Liberty (1973), Power and Market ch. 3 Free market money :See also Free banking, Gold standard, and Monetary reform Rothbard believed the monopoly power of government over the issuance and distribution of money was inherently destructive and unethical. The belief derived from Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek's Austrian theory of the business cycle, which holds that undue credit expansion inevitably leads to a gross misallocation of capital resources, triggering unsustainable credit bubbles and, eventually, economic depressions. He, therefore, strongly opposed central banking and fractional reserve banking under a fiat money system, labeling it as "legalized counterfeiting"The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar, Murray Rothbard or a form of institutionalized embezzlement and therefore inherently fraudulent."It should be clear that modern fractional reserve banking is a shell game, a Ponzi scheme, a fraud in which fake warehouse receipts are issued and circulate as equivalent to the cash supposedly represented by the receipt." Rothbard, Murray. [http://mises.org/resources/614/Mystery-of-Banking-The The Mystery of Banking], pp. 96–97, 89–94What is Money?, Gary North He characterized the government-enforced prohibition on citizens using commodity currencies as legal tender a compulsory Ponzi scheme, one from which no citizen could escape.Rothbard, Murray. [http://mises.org/resources/614/Mystery-of-Banking-The The Mystery of Banking], pp. 96–97, 89–94 He strongly advocated full reserve banking ("100 percent banking")The Case Against the Fed, Murray Rothbard: "A gold-coin standard, coupled with instant liquidation for any bank that fails to meet its contractual obligations, would bring about a free banking system so 'hard' and sound, that any problem of inflationary credit or counterfeiting would be minimal. It is perhaps a 'second-best' solution to the ideal of treating fractional-reserve bankers as embezzlers, but it would suffice at least as an excellent solution for the time being, that is, until people are ready to press on to full 100 percent banking." and a voluntary, nongovernmental gold standardSee also these Rothbard articles: What Has Government Done to Our Money?, The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar; The Fed as Cartel, Private Coinage, Repudiate the National Debt; Taking Money Back, Anatomy of the Bank Run, Money and the Individual or, as a second best solution, free banking (which he also called "free market money").Rothbard, Murray. [http://mises.org/resources/614/Mystery-of-Banking-The The Mystery of Banking], Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2008. p. 111, 278 In relation to the current central bank-managed fractional reserve fiat currency system, he stated the following:Rothbard, Murray. [http://mises.org/resources/614/Mystery-of-Banking-The The Mystery of Banking], p. 261 Noninterventionism Believing like Randolph Bourne that "war is the health of the state," Rothbard opposed aggressive foreign policy. In 1964 he wrote that "deplorable American imperialism" is the "main issue of our time.".Murray N. Rothbard, The Transformation of the American Right, first published in Continuum, Summer 1964, pp. 220–231; reprinted at LewRockwell.com. His dislike of US imperialism even led him to eulogize and lament the CIA-assisted execution of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in 1967, proclaiming that "his enemy was our enemy".[http://mises.org/journals/lar/pdfs/3_3/3_3_1.pdf Ernesto Che Guevara R.I.P.] by Murray Rothbard, Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought, Volume 3, Number 3 (Spring-Autumn 1967) Rothbard believed that stopping new wars was necessary and knowledge of how government had seduced citizens into earlier wars was important. Two essays expanded on these views "War, Peace, and the State" and "The Anatomy of the State." Rothbard used insights of the elitism theorists Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Robert Michels to build a model of state personnel, goals, and ideology.Joseph R. Stromberg, Murray Rothbard on States, War, and Peace: Part I (also see Part II), Antiwar.com, originally published June 2000.See both essays, Murray N. Rothbard, War, Peace, and the State, first published 1963; Anatomy of the State, first published 1974, both at LewRockwell.com. In an obituary for historian Harry Elmer Barnes, Rothbard explained why historical knowledge is important:Murray N. Rothbard, Harry Elmer Barnes, RIP, from "Left and Right" final issue, 1968, republished at LewRockwell.com. Rothbard discussed his views on the principles of a libertarian foreign policy in a 1973 interview: "The libertarian position, generally, is minimize State power as much as possible, down to zero, and isolationism is the full expression in foreign affairs of the domestic objective of whittling down State power." He further called for "abstinence from any kind of American military intervention and political and economic intervention." In For a New Liberty he writes: "In a purely libertarian world, therefore, there would be no 'foreign policy' because there would be no States, no governments with a monopoly of coercion over particular territorial areas." In "War Guilt in the Middle East," Rothbard details Israel's "aggression against Middle East Arabs," confiscatory policies, and its "refusal to let these refugees return and reclaim the property taken from them."Murray Rothbard, War Guilt in the Middle East, "Left and Right", Vol. 3 No. 3 (Autumn 1967) (cited here.) Rothbard also criticized the “organized Anti-Anti-Semitism” that critics of the state of Israel have to suffer.Murray N. Rothbard, Pat Buchanan and the Menace of Anti-anti-semitism, December 1990, from The Irrepressible Rothbard, published at LewRockwell.com. Rothbard criticized as state terrorism the actions of the United States, Israel, and any nation that "retaliates" against innocents because they cannot pinpoint actual perpetrators. He held that no retaliation that injures or kills innocent people is justified, writing "Anything else is an apologia for unremitting and unending mass murder."Murray N. Rothbard, Who Are the Terrorists?, first published in the Libertarian Party News, March/April 1986, reproduced at LewRockwell.com. Children and rights In the Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard explores in terms of self-ownership and contract several contentious issues regarding children's rights. These include women's right to abortion, proscriptions on parents aggressing against children once they are born, and the issue of the state forcing parents to care for children, including those with severe health problems. He also holds children have the right to "run away" from parents and seek new guardians as soon as they are able to choose to do so. He suggested parents have the right to put a child out for adoption or even sell the rights to the child in a voluntary contract, which he feels is more humane than artificial governmental restriction of the number of children available to willing and often superior parents. He also discusses how the current juvenile justice system punishes children for making "adult" choices, such as underage drinking or sex, removing children unnecessarily and against their will from parents, often putting them in uncaring and even brutal foster care or juvenile facilities, while at the same time denying to them those legal rights adults enjoy, such as trial by jury, a written transcript of their court proceedings, etc.The Ethics of Liberty, Chapter 14 "Children and Rights."See also Ronald Hamowy, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, Cato Institute, SAGE, 2008, 59-61 ISBN 1-4129-6580-2, ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4 Anti-egalitarianism In a 1963 article, Rothbard wrote that "the Negro Revolution has some elements that a libertarian must favor, others that he must oppose. Thus, the libertarian opposes compulsory segregation and police brutality, but also opposes compulsory integration and such absurdities as ethnic quota systems in jobs."Murray N. Rothbard, The Negro Revolution, New Individualist Review, Volume 3, Number 1, Summer 1963. According to Rothbard biographer Justin Raimondo, Rothbard considered Malcolm X to be a "great black leader” and Martin Luther King to be favored by whites because he “was the major restraining force on the developing Negro revolution." Rothbard also compared Lyndon B. Johnson's use of troops to crush urban riots in 1968 after King's assassination to Johnson's use of American troops in the Vietnam War.Justin Raimondo, An Enemy of the State, p. 167–168, Prometheus Books, 2000. The title essay of Rothbard's 1974 book Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays held, "Equality is not in the natural order of things, and the crusade to make everyone equal in every respect (except before the law) is certain to have disastrous consequences."George C. Leef, Book Review of Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays by Murray Rothbard, edited by David Gordon (2000 edition), The Freeman, July 2001. In it, Rothbard wrote, "At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality; that all the world is a tabula rasa that can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will."Murray Rothbard, Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays, essay published in full at Lewrockwell.com, 2003. See also Rothbard's essay The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues, the 1991 introduction to republication of "Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor", Ludwig Von Mises Institute, 2008. Rothbard also expressed his views that statists suppressed academic research on race in order to support their goal of using the state to enforce egalitarian goals.Murray Rothbard, Race! That Murray Book, LewRockwell.com, December 1994. In a 2003 Southern Poverty Law Center essay, commentator Chip Berlet said Rothbard was "a man who complained that the 'Officially Oppressed' of American society (read, blacks, women and so on) were a 'parasitic burden,' forcing their 'hapless Oppressors' to provide 'an endless flow of benefits.'" Apparently quoting from Rothbard's, "Who are the oppressed," Part III of Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website. Political activism As a young man, Rothbard considered himself part of the Old Right, an anti-statist and anti-interventionist branch of the Republican Party. In the 1948 presidential election, Rothbard, "as a Jewish student at Columbia, horrified his peers by organizing a Students for Strom Thurmond chapter, so staunchly did he believe in states’ rights."McCarthy, Daniel (2007-03-12) Enemies of the State, The American Conservative Years later, he would look back on his support for Thurmond as "naïve": When interventionist cold warriors of the National Review, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., gained influence in the Republican party in the 1950s, Rothbard quit the party, walking out for good when moderate Dwight Eisenhower defeated Old Right stalwart Robert A. Taft for the 1952 Republican presidential nomination.Rothbard, Murray. Swan Song of the Old Right, LewRockwell.com He would go on to support Democrat Adlai Stevenson in that year's election, "largely as the only way to get the Wall Street incubus off the back of the Republican Party." After Rothbard died, Buckley wrote a bitter obituary in the National Review criticizing Rothbard's "defective judgment" and views on the Cold War.William F. Buckley, Murray Rothbard, RIP – professor and Libertarian Party founder, National Review, February 6, 1995. By the late 1960s, Rothbard's "long and winding yet somehow consistent road had taken him from anti-New Deal and anti-interventionist Robert Taft supporter into friendship with the quasi-pacifist Nebraska Republican Congressman Howard Buffett (father of Warren Buffett) then over to the League of (Adlai) Stevensonian Democrats and, by 1968, into tentative comradeship with the anarchist factions of the New Left."Kauffman, Bill (2008-05-19) When the Left Was Right, The American Conservative Rothbard advocated an alliance with the New Left anti-war movement, on the grounds that the conservative movement had been completely subsumed by the statist establishment. However, Rothbard later criticized the New Left for supporting a "People's Republic" style draft. It was during this phase that he associated with Karl Hess and founded Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought with Leonard Liggio and George Resch, which existed from 1965 to 1968. From 1969 to 1984 he edited The Libertarian Forum, also initially with Hess (although Hess's involvement ended in 1971). Rothbard criticized the "frenzied nihilism" of left-wing libertarians, but also criticized right-wing libertarians who were content to rely only on education to bring down the state; he believed that libertarians should adopt any non-immoral tactic available to them in order to bring about liberty.Lora, Ronald & Longton, Henry. 1999. The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America. Greenwood Press. p. 369 , Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, and Rothbard.]] During the 1970s and 1980s, Rothbard was active in the Libertarian Party. He was frequently involved in the party's internal politics. He was one of the founders of the Cato Institute, and "came up with the idea of naming this libertarian think tank after Cato’s Letters, a powerful series of British newspaper essays by John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon which played a decisive influence upon America's Founding Fathers in fomenting the Revolution."Burris, Charles (2011-02-04) Kochs v. Soros: A Partial Backstory, LewRockwell.com From 1978 to 1983, he was associated with the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus, allying himself with Justin Raimondo, Eric Garris and Williamson Evers. He opposed the "low tax liberalism" espoused by 1980 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Ed Clark and Cato Institute president Edward H Crane III. According to Charles Burris, "Rothbard and Crane became bitter rivals after disputes emerging from the 1980 LP presidential campaign of Ed Clark carried over to strategic direction and management of Cato." Rothbard split with the Radical Caucus at the 1983 national convention over cultural issues and aligned himself with what he called the "right-wing populist" wing of the party, notably Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, who ran for President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988. "Rothbard worked closely with Lew Rockwell (joined later by his long-time friend Burt Blumert) in nurturing the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the publication, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report; which after Rothbard’s 1995 death evolved into the popular website, LewRockwell.com." In 1989, Rothbard left the Libertarian Party and began building bridges to the post-Cold War anti-interventionist right, calling himself a paleolibertarian.Murrary Rothbard, "Big Government Libertarianism", Lew Rockwell.com, November 1994.Julian Sanchez & David Weigel, "Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters?", Reason Magazine, January 16, 2008. He was the founding president of the conservative-libertarian John Randolph Club and supported the presidential campaign of Pat Buchanan in 1992, saying that "with Pat Buchanan as our leader, we shall break the clock of social democracy."Murray Rothbard, Strategy for the Right, LewRockwell.com, 2002. Like Buchanan, Rothbard opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).Reese, Charley (1993-10-14) The U.S. Standard Of Living Will Decline If Nafta Is Approved, Orlando Sentinel However, later he became disillusioned with Buchanan, believing that the latter's "commitment to protectionism was mutating into an all-round faith in economic planning and the nation state."Lew Rockwell, What I Learned From Paleoism, LewRockwell.com, 2002. Rothbard then shifted his interest and support to Ross Perot,Still the State's Greatest Living Enemy, Mises Institute, 2005 who Rothbard wrote had "brought an excitement, a verve, a sense of dynamics and of open possibilities to what had threatened to be a dreary race."Rothbard, Murray (1992-06-01) Little Texan Connects Big With Masses: Perot is a populist in the content of his views and in the manner of his candidacy, Los Angeles Times There was active talk of the two meeting to discuss electoral strategy. Rothbard ultimately supported George Bush over Bill Clinton in the 1992 election.Hold Back the Hordes for 4 More Years: Any sensible American has one real choice – George Bush., Los Angeles Times, 1992Raimondo, Justin (2012-10-01) Race for the White House, 2012: Whom to Root For?, Antiwar.com Lew Rockwell has said that Rothbard is considered the "dean of the Austrian School of economics, the founder of libertarianism, and an exemplar of the Old Right".Rothbard archives, Lew Rockwell.com Personal life In addition to economics, history, and philosophy, Rothbard took an intense personal interest in chess, German Baroque church architecture, and early jazz, among other subjects.[http://students.uis.edu/araut01s/ir-intro.html Introduction to The Irrepressible Rothbard] Rothbard criticized the "degeneration" of jazz and popular song into bebop and rock music.Rothbard, Murray. Jazz Needs a Melody! Although Rothbard's views towards religion were sympathetic, he was an atheist. In his film reviews (printed under the pen name "Mr. First Nighter"), Rothbard criticized "slow, ponderous, boring" films which "reek of pretension and deliberate boredom," such as Juliet of the Spirits and The Piano.Rothbard, Murray. "Those Awards". He generally praised films that represented "Old Culture" values which he felt were exemplified by the James Bond franchise: "marvelous plot, exciting action, hero vs. villains, spy plots, crisp dialogue and the frank enjoyment of bourgeois luxury and fascinating technological gadgets."[http://mises.org/journals/lf/1973/1973_07.pdf Libertarian Forum, July 1973] Rothbard enjoyed action movies such as The Fugitive and Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, and praised Woody Allen's wit.[http://mises.org/journals/lf/1977/1977_08.aspx#2a Libertarian Forum, August 1977] He disliked Star Wars, "such a silly, cartoony, comic-strip movie that no one can possibly take it seriously," and 2001: A Space Odyssey, a "pretentious, mystical, boring, plotless piece of claptrap," calling for a return to science fiction films like It Came from Outer Space and "the incomparable Invasion of the Body Snatchers."[http://mises.org/journals/lf/1977/1977_06.pdf Libertarian Forum, June 1977] Publications * Man, Economy, and State (Full Text; ISBN 0-945466-30-7) (1962) * The Panic of 1819 (Full Text). 1962, 2006 edition: ISBN 1-933550-08-2. * America's Great Depression. (Full Text) ISBN 0-945466-05-6. (1963, 1972, 1975, 1983, 2000) * What Has Government Done to Our Money? (Full Text / Audio Book) ISBN 0-945466-44-7. (1963) * Economic Depressions: Causes and Cures (Full Text) (1969) * Power and Market: Government and the Economy (Full Text). ISBN 1-933550-05-8. (1970) (restored to Man, Economy, and State ISBN 0-945466-30-7, 2004) * Education: Free and Compulsory (Full Text). ISBN 0-945466-22-6. (1972) * Left and Right, Selected Essays 1954–65 (1972) * For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (Full text / Audio book) ISBN 0-945466-47-1. (1973, 1978) * The Essential von Mises (1973) * The Case for the 100 Percent Gold Dollar. ISBN 0-945466-34-X. (Full Text / Audio Book) (1974) * Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays ISBN 0-945466-23-4. (1974) * Conceived in Liberty (4 vol.) ISBN 0-945466-26-9. (1975–79) * Individualism and the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. ISBN 0-932790-03-8. (1979) * The Ethics of Liberty (Full Text / Audio Book) ISBN 0-8147-7559-4. (1982) * The Mystery of Banking ISBN 0-943940-04-4. (1983) * Ludwig von Mises: Scholar, Creator, Hero. . (1988) * Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism, and the Division of Labor. Full text (included as Chapter 16 in Egalitarianism above) (1991) * The Case Against the Fed ISBN 0-945466-17-X. (1994) * An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (2 vol.) ISBN 0-945466-48-X. (1995) * Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy. (Full Text) with an introduction by Justin Raimondo. (1995) * Making Economic Sense. ISBN 0-945466-18-8. (1995, 2006) * Logic of Action (2 vol.) ISBN 1-85898-015-1 and ISBN 1-85898-570-6. (1997, reprinted as Economic Controversies in 2011) * The Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle and Other Essays. ISBN 0-945466-21-8. (also by Mises, Hayek, & Haberler) * Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard. (Full Text.) (Preface by JoAnn Rothbard) (Introduction by Lew Rockwell.) ISBN 1-883959-02-0. (2000) * A History of Money and Banking in the United States. ISBN 0-945466-33-1. (2002) * The Complete Libertarian Forum (2 vol.) (Full Text) ISBN 1-933550-02-3. (1969–84; 2006) * The Betrayal of the American Right ISBN 978-1-933550-13-8 (2007) * Rothbard vs. the Philosophers edited with an introduction by Roberta Modugno ISBN 978-1-933550-46-6 (2009) * Strictly Confidential edited by David Gordon (2010) See also * * * American philosophy * List of American philosophers References * Doherty, Brian. Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. PublicAffairs. 2007. ISBN 1-58648-350-1 PDF version * Gordon, David. The Essential Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1st edition. February 26, 2007. ISBN 1-933550-10-4 * Raimondo, Justin. An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard. Prometheus Books. July 2000. ISBN 1-57392-809-7 * * * * * * * * * Notes External links ;About *Murray Rothbard at NNDB * BlackCrayon.com: People: Murray Rothbard * Murray Rothbard at Mises.org Wiki ;Prose * Remembering Rothbard: Antiwar Archive, selection of online articles by Rothbard, on foreign policy * Murray N. Rothbard, Newt Gingrich is No Libertarian, Washington Post, Friday, December 30, 1994; Page A17. (Rothbard's last newspaper column, before his death) ;Books * Murray N. Rothbard Library and Resources ;Audio / video * Murray Rothbard at YouTube ;Etc. * Murray Rothbard Institute, Belgium * Category:1926 births Category:1995 deaths Category:American anarchists Category:American anti-communists Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists Category:American anti-war activists Category:American atheists Category:American book editors Category:American economics writers Category:American economists Category:American essayists Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American historians Category:American journalists Category:American libertarians Category:American political philosophers Category:American political theorists Category:American political writers Category:Anarchism theorists Category:Anarcho-capitalists Category:Austrian School economists Category:Columbia University alumni Category:Critics of Objectivism Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Historians of the United States Category:Historians of economic thought Category:Jewish anarchists Category:Jewish American social scientists Category:Jewish American writers Category:Jewish atheists Category:Libertarian economists Category:Libertarian historians Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Members of the Libertarian Party (United States) Category:Philosophy writers Category:University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty Category:Anarchist academics Category:Paleolibertarianism Category:Old Right (United States)